DOUBLE TAKE
Year: 2009
USA: Kino
UK: Soda Pictures
Cast: Alfred Hitchcock, Ron Burrage, Mark Perry, Delfine Bafort
Director: Johan Grimonprez
Countries: Belgium / Germany / Netherlands
USA & UK: 80 mins
USA Rated: Unrated
UK Certificate: 12A contains disturbing images and moderate horror
USA Release Date: 2 June 2010 (Limited Release)
UK Release Date: 2 April 2010 (Limited Release)
Synopsis
"If you meet your double, you should kill him."
While in the middle of shooting THE BIRDS at Universal Studios base in California in 1962, Alfred Hitchcock is urgently called from the set to the production office. Imagine his shock when he arrives to be confronted by his double, claiming to be the real Alfred Hitchcock. Taking the upper hand the impersonator declares, 'If you meet your double, you should kill him. Or he will kill you. Two of you is one too many. By the end of the script, one of you must die'.
Using archive footage, Alfred Hitchcock stars in DOUBLE TAKE, a story of intrigue, personal paranoia and deception and uses Hitchcock's own sardonic wit to explore his preoccupation with doubles - a recurring theme in his films. Positioned against the backdrop of the Cold War and inspired by Jorge Luis Borges novel The Others, best-selling British author Tom McCarthy writes a plot to mirror the political intrigue in which Hitchcock and his elusive double increasingly obsess over the perfect murder of each other.